But former Sen. Brandes, who championed criminal justice and prison reform during his tenure in the Legislature, says that lawmakers need to understand that having a functioning air-conditioning system in the state’s prison facilities isn’t just for the inmates.
“It’s for the corrections officers and staff that work there, too,” he says. “And one of the major challenges that the Department of Corrections has is in retaining staff. Because who wants to work in the middle of July in a very hot location where you have no access to cell service and often times are under the concern of physical force or physical threat by inmates? That’s a reason why we have such a high amount of turnover in the Department of Corrections.”